Circular die with a central four-leaved plant paris quadrifolia, surrounded by a French inscription reading: '*LEL AMI AVET' for 'you have a loyal (or faithful) love'. [No Reserve]

PROVENANCE:
Found Fairstead, Braintree, Essex, UK.

Accompanied by a copy of the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) report no.ESS-F0F3AA.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

LITERATURE:
See Jones, M., The Secret Middle Ages, Cheltenham, 2025, 24-5, 313-4, for further discussion.

FOOTNOTES:
Dr Malcolm Jones notes: 'This common device and associated inscription need to be understood in the context of the imagery and conventions of amour courtois/Courtly Love. Certainly, ami literally means ‘friend’, but in this context it means ‘love, lover, beloved’ – so the legend means “you have a loyal/faithful love”. Furthermore this quatrefoil is no ordinary stylised flower. In medieval English the four-leaved plant paris quadrifolia was known as the truelove. Two 15th-century English wills include the bequest of rings in the shape of a truelove: an anulum argenti operatum cum uno trewlove (silver ring fashioned with a truelove) in 1407, and unum anulum argenti et deauratum cum uno trew lofe (a silver and silver-gilt ring with a truelove) in 1464.